There are disappointed faces inside every car. There is also anger and confusion because here in Jackson, Mississippi’s state capital, they don’t have safe water. A city-wide “boil water” order has been in effect for the past month due to “high levels of turbidity”, which makes the water appear cloudy. That followed a series of outages in the city’s water supply over the years, caused by high lead levels, bacterial contamination and storm damage. This time, the crisis was exacerbated by flooding, which damaged the city’s aging water treatment works. “It’s a travesty of our time,” a man in line tells me. “When the infrastructure is outdated, those are the problems we have.” “We don’t trust the water at all,” says another, adding that she hasn’t trusted the water for years. Many in this city of 150,000 are gathering for their relatives, young and old. “We’re trying to get water for his mother. She’s 87 years old,” says a woman pointing to her passenger. I ask if they have water at home. “It comes out, but it’s very slow. And you can’t use it for anything. We’re told to boil it for three minutes.” Guidelines issued by the American Red Cross suggest that people should use coffee filters to remove the grounds from the water before boiling it, as things stand. Beyond the immediate challenges of how to wash, flush the toilet, find water to drink, they blame either the mayor of the city or the governor of the state. “The governor is to blame for this,” says one man. “He won’t take the money to Jackson to help.” Image: Lines for water are a daily occurrence Flooding from the Pearl River has also crippled the water system in the past fortnight, but this is not just a story of storm damage. It’s about funding, politics and race. In Jackson, 82% of people are black, a quarter live in poverty – 25% for a country where the average poverty level is 11%. Crime levels are among the highest in the country. Jackson is a city that feels neglected and forgotten, like so many corners of America today. President Joe Biden has made addressing the nation’s damaged infrastructure a central policy issue ahead of November’s midterm elections. Federal support has been promised for immediate challenges. Correcting a legacy of underinvestment will take many years. At a citywide press conference, a show of political unity masked a rocky relationship between the city’s mayor and the state’s governor. Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, a Democrat, has for years sought more funding for Jackson from the state’s Republican governor, Tate Reeves. Image: State Governor Tate Reeves I asked Mr. Reeves why the town is in this extraordinary state. “Well, what I would say to you is, and I know you in the press really want to play the blame game, and you really want to focus on pitting different people against each other, and that’s certainly your priority, and that it is OK. “What we are focused on is the immediate health and well-being of the people of Jackson.” Governor Reeves continued: “There will be plenty of time in the future to play the blame game. And you can do all that, you can do it in real time if you want, but I don’t have time for that.” The city’s mayor, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, who some also blame for the crisis, was more concerned. “It’s a set of accumulated problems based on delayed maintenance that hasn’t been done for decades,” he said. He estimated it would cost at least $1bn (£870m) to repair the water distribution system. Billions more would be needed to address the broader neglect. “The people of Jackson deserve a reliable system, and we look forward to a coalition of the willing joining us in the fight to improve this system that has been failing for decades,” said Mayor Lumumba. The harsh reality is that authorities here have no idea when safe water will return to this American community.
